HAKEN, one of progressive music’s most exciting bands, recently released their much-anticipated and highly praised fifth studio album titled ‘Vector’. Following the announcement North American, European & Latin American tour dates, the band revealed Australian and New Zealand live dates in support of the new album for 2019. We caught up with guitarist Charlie Griffiths to talk about the tour, their previous run with ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy and much more.
Andrew: So thanks for your time, really appreciate it! It’s good to see you back in the country again, how are you guys feeling about it?
Charlie: Super excited! I mean personally it’s big and I had never been to Australia before…when was the last we were there? [laughs]
Andrew: I think it was 2017 if I’m not mistaken.
Charlie: Yeah that sounds correct and I had never been there before and I ended up going there twice, first with Mike Portnoy doing the Shattered Fortress and then about three weeks later we came back with Haken.
Andrew: That’s right, I remember that! You guys came down with Mike Portnoy doing the six suite thing, how was that? That must have been fantastic?
Charlie: Oh man it was a dream come true really, playing Dream Theater music which I’ve grown up with, listening to and learning a lot from and then finally getting to play with one of the guys playing that music was kind of like comparing to playing Beatles songs with Ringo, it was kind of that important to me.
Andrew: I’ve spoken to him on the phone once before and he seemed like a really nice guy but what’s he like to actually hang out with and perform with as well?
Charlie: He’s a lot of fun and just like a chilled out guy to hang out with but when it comes to the show, he’s super professional. He’s really focused on how everything is presented to give the fans the experience they pay for, he really wants it to be the kind of perfect experience for the fans. That was a big thing to learn from him, to kind of put your all into it so I think we’ve definitely upped the sort of quality of our live performance and considering things like lighting and basically I put it on as a moderate production and some guys show how to play music. So that was definitely something we kind of learned from Mike.
Andrew: So it’s obviously great to see you back with Haken on your own headlining tour and we we mentioned before it’s been a couple of years since your first run and this time you are actually going to New Zealand for the first time as well right?
Charlie: Yeah first time and yeah, can’t wait! I mean all I know about New Zealand is that it’s Middle Earth [laughs].
Andrew: [laughs] Well just on that subject then when you have been the couple of times to Australia, did you get a chance to do a lot of sightseeing at all or was it really tight schedules?
Charlie: Yeah when we come there basically we’re flying in the morning and then we soundcheck in the afternoon and the show in the evening. It’s really every day is like that so there’s not really any down time at all and there’s no sleep whatsoever [laughs]. Often once you’ve packed down and got back to the hotel it’s like 2am and then you have to be up again at 4am to get flights.
Andrew: So not a lot of down time by the sounds of it. That’s the way it is with touring bands obviously in Australia because of the distance I guess. I mean are you guys OK with travelling long distances like that or are you used to it by now? How do you deal with that?
Charlie: Yeah I think you just gotta get into the frame of mind that you know just for this week you are not going to be able to relax, you’re just going to be working and travelling. Once you’re in the frame of mind it’s kind of doable, but I guess we’re used to it by now. I wish we did see more of Australia, it’s obviously an amazing place and I would love to see more of it. I’ll have to come back for a holiday!
Andrew: Yeah absolutely! So you are supporting your latest album “Vector” that came out last year, what kind of feedback have you been getting from fans and stuff since it was released?
Charlie: On the whole really positive, a lot of good reviews we’re seeing and we see good reactions. When we toured over in the States and in Europe with it and in South America and the reactions to the newer songs has been awesome. I guess it’s kind of a heavier album and those kind of songs go over really well live, they kind of translate to be played loud through a massive PA and it’s good fun, that’s what I like. I kind of grew up a metal kind of thrash kid really, that’s what I live for, playing heavy riffs.
Andrew: Yeah I was going to say, listening to Vektor I would definitely say it’s heavier than your previous stuff and there’s some stand out tracks. I know you’ve already been out there promoting it for a long time now but one of the things that I really liked was the Puzzle Box idea that you put out there for the fans, it was such a unique thing. What was inspiring that, where did that come from?
Charlie: That was actually an idea put forward by Freddie from Inside Out. He suggested that we do this puzzle box, he had this puzzle box thing and he knew we wouldn’t be able to solve it basically. He wanted to make us look like idiots on camera and so we came back to him saying why don’t we put the song out with each segment of the video and then put it out in the wrong order over a period of days and people can try and figure out how it fits together, so the song is kind of like a puzzle as well. It was a joint effort that idea, it was a fun idea.
Andrew: Yeah it was fantastic and you got the fans involved as well. I guess with your kind of music with progressive metal, it almost seems like a puzzle in a way because there’s a lot of different elements and sections and stuff and I guess when you create these songs, do you create it in a way like a puzzle where you have to fit pieces together like that?
Charlie: Oh yeah definitely. We don’t write a song from start to finish, you start with the intro, then the verse and then the chorus. You don’t do it in order, you just sort of write various sections and then see what fits together. It really is like that, fitting jigsaw pieces together until you come up with something that you think works basically. Also lyrics as well, trying to write melodies over this music is sometimes a bit of a challenge and it might take weeks to come up with the correct thing, it’s something you’re always thinking about through out the period of writing the album. This one took about 6 months I think to write and record and it’s just always on your mind, you’re always trying to think, ‘How can I solve this, how can I make this work’.
Andrew: Does the writing process get any easier over the years or does it get more difficult to come up with more fresh and unique ideas?
Charlie: I think there’s no shortage of ideas, that’s always been there but I think we’re just getting better at working as a team. I think we kind of know each other’s strengths and weaknesses by this point and we can almost sort of guess what someone else is going to say about your ideas so you maybe develop it a bit further before presenting it to them or something like that. So I think the process is probably a little bit more matured from a personal point of view I suppose.
Andrew: OK so you touched on some of your metal influences when you were growing up, now the first time I heard Haken I was getting a lot of Dream Theater stuff from your music. So what was some of your own influences then growing up? You mentioned heavier stuff, what kind of bands are we talking about?
Charlie: Well initially the first band I was ever into was Queen and they are still my favorite band. I was into the kind of thrash stuff, I was a huge Megadeth fan in the 90’s and Pantera of course and a lot of death metal stuff like Death and Cynic, Morbid Angel and just a lot of heavy stuff. All those bands I mentioned, I kind of listen to them now and think actually this music is quite progressive. It’s like listen to a Morbid Angel song, it’s not all in 4/4 and there’s interesting things going on with the rhythms and the drums and the kind of note choices that they would use in solos and riffs and stuff. I guess I was always drawn to the less kind of straight ahead sounding music without knowing what it was called, I didn’t know it was called progressive music.
Andrew: Yeah and some of the more extreme stuff like tech death and things like that is interesting to listen to because it is complex and like classical music or jazz music in a way I guess. So how did you get into this type of music that you’re playing now? Was it something you just fell into or were you striving to be in this kind of band?
Charlie: I suppose it’s the same with all of us, you just write the music that you want to hear. So I don’t think I could really be in any other sort of band really, this is the music I come up with and it’s just lucky that we found each other as musicians and it kind of worked out. That’s the kind of hardest thing to do this, is to find the right guys. I meet so many friends and other musicians saying, ‘I just can’t find the people’. It’s hard but there’s a lot of luck involved with it and who you meet but you just gotta keep your eye out for opportunities in this and just kinda grab them when they come along and thankfully this worked out otherwise I don’t know what I would be doing otherwise.
Andrew: Yeah exactly, you find what you’re passionate about and you just go for it. We are looking forward to seeing you guys in Australia again but after the tour what do you have planned and will you be at some stage looking at the next album or is that too early to say at this stage?
Charlie: Yeah after a couple of weeks after we get back from Australia we’ve got some European shows, we’ve got a run of festivals through out Europe and some headlining shows for a couple of weeks. And then in November and December we’re going out with Devin Townsend as opening band for his Empath tour so that’s kind of what we’re focusing on at the moment, just those upcoming shows. I guess there will be some writing in the middle somewhere but I don’t know, it’s too early to say what will happen with that.
Andrew: Well we are looking forward to seeing you in the country again, we really enjoyed you guys last time you came down. Hopefully it will all go really well for you guys again and enjoy your stay in New Zealand as well! Thanks for your time, really appreciated.
Charlie: Thanks for your time too.
HAKEN June 2019 Australian and NZ Tour Dates:
Wednesday 5th June – AUCKLAND Galatos
Thursday 6th June – BRISBANE The Brightside
Friday 7th June – SYDNEY Factory Theatre
Saturday 8th June – MELBOURNE Max Watts
Sunday 9th June – ADELAIDE The Gov
Tickets from: http://davidroywilliams.com/tours/hakentour/
